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what pedantically calls it; or of Teleophoby, as it is called by K. E. von Baer, in humorous irony.

The anonymous author of the book called “The Unconscious from the Standpoint of Physiology and Descent Theory," asserts that, while the descent theory but puts the teleological principle in question by withdrawing the ground for a positive proof-an assertion which we certainly have to reject most decidedly (compare Part II, Book II, Chap. I, § 2-8 6)—the selection theory directly rejects it. Natural selection, he says, solves the seemingly unsolvable problem of explaining the conformity to the end in view, as result, without taking it as an aiding principle. And Helmholtz says: 'Darwin's theory shows how conformity to the end in the formation of organisms can also originate without any intermingling of an intelligence by the blind administration of a law of nature.”

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Häckel really revels in these ideas. He says (Nat. Hist. of Creat., Vol. I, p. 19): "These optimistic views [of the much-talked of purposiveness of nature or of the much-talked-of beneficence of the Creator] have, unfortunately, as little real foundation as the favorite phrase, 'the moral order of the universe,' which is illustrated in an ironical way by the history of all nations. If we contemplate the common life and the mutual relations between plants and animals (man included), we shall find everywhere, and at all times, the very opposite of that kindly and peaceful social life which the goodness of the Creator ought to have prepared for his creatures-we shall rather find everywhere a pitiless, most embittered Struggle of All against All. Nowhere in nature, no matter where we turn our eyes, does that

idyllic peace, celebrated by the poets, exist; we find everywhere a struggle and a striving to annihilate neighbors and competitors. Passion and selfishness-conscious or unconscious-is everywhere the motive force of life. * * * Man in this respect certainly forms. no exception to the rest of the animal world." And on page 33: "In the usual dualistic or teleological (vital) conception of the universe, organic nature is regarded as the purposely executed production of a Creator working according to a definite plan. Its adherents see in every individual species of animal and plant an 'embodied creative thought,' the material expression of a definite first cause (causa finalis), acting for a set purpose. They must necessarily assume supernatural (not mechanical) processes of the origin of organisms. * * On the other hand, the theory of development carried out by Darwin, must, if carried out logically, lead to the monistic or mechanical (causal) conception of the universe. In opposition to the dualistic or teleological conception of nature, our theory considers organic as well as inorganic bodies to be the necessary products of natural forces. It does not see in every individual species of animal and plant the embodied thought of a personal Creator, but the expression for the time being of a mechanical process of development of matter, the expression of a necessarily active cause, that is, of a mechanical cause (causa efficiens). Where teleological Dualism seeks the arbitrary thoughts of a capricious Creator in miracles of creation, causal Monism finds in the process of development the necessary effects of eternal immutable laws of nature." Häckel's "Anthropogeny " also is replete with attacks upon a teleological

view of nature, which leave nothing wanting in distinctness and coarseness. On page 111, Vol. I, we read: "The rudimentary organs clearly prove that the mechanical, or monistic conception of the nature of organisms is alone correct, and that the prevailing teleological, or dualistic method of accounting for them is entirely false. The very ancient fable of the all-wise plan according to which the Creator's hand has ordained all things with wisdom and understanding,' the empty phrase about the purposive plan of structure' of organisms is in this way completely disproved. Stronger arguments can hardly be furnished against the customary teleology, or Doctrine of Design, than the fact that all more highly developed organisms possess such rudimentary organs. (Compare also Vol. II, p. 439: "The rudimentary organs are among the most overwhelming proofs against the prevailing teleological ideas of creation.") According to his opinion (Vol. I, p. 245), comparative anatomy may no longer look for a "pre-arranged plan of construction by the Creator. Besides, he calls it an anthropocentric error to look upon man as a preconceived aim of creation and a true final purpose of terrestrial life; and on page 17, of Vol. II, he supports this judgment by comparing the relative shortness of the existence of mankind with the length of the preceding geological periods: "Since the awakening of the human consciousness, human vanity and human arrogance have delighted in regarding Man as the real main-purpose and end of all earthly life, and as the centre of terrestrial Nature, for whose use and service all the activities of the rest of creation were from the first defined or predestined by a 'wise providence.' How utterly baseless these presump

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tuous anthropocentric conceptions are, nothing could evince more strikingly than a comparison of the duration of the Anthropozoic or Quaternary Epoch with that of the preceding Epochs." And on page 234, Vol. II: "Hence it is that, in accordance with the received teleological view, it has been customary to admire the socalled wisdom of the Creator' and the 'purposive contrivances of His Creation' especially in this matter. But on more mature consideration it will be observed that the Creator, according to this conception, does after all but play the part of an ingenious mechanic or of a skillful watchmaker; just, indeed, as all these cherished teleological conceptions of the Creator and His Creation are based on childish anthropomorphism.

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But it is exactly on this point that the history of evolution proves most clearly that this received conception is radically false. The history of evolution convinces us that the highly purposive and admirably constituted sense organs, like all other organs, have developed without premeditated aim."

Strauss, in his "The Old Faith and the New," gives to this idea its philosophic and universalistic finish. In § 67-8 70, he eliminates not only the idea of design in individual cases, but also the idea of a design in the world as a whole; allows us to speak of design in the world only in a subjective sense, so far as we understand it to be what we think we perceive as the common final aim of the concert of the powers, active in the world; and finds, when in such a sense it is spoken of as design in the world, that the universe reaches its end in every instance. Only the parts develop themselves, driven by the mechanical laws of causality, and after having lived

their period of life, sink back again into the universe, in order to make place for new developments and to prepare them in their turn.

For the view of the world which the antagonists of teleology construct out of this "mechanical” and “causal” view, they, as we have repeatedly seen, have invented the name 66 monism." In contrast to all dualism in reasoning about the relation of body and soul, God and universe, time and eternity, and especially in contrast to the dualism with which the theistic view of the world is said to be loaded, monism claims that what was formerly divided into God and universe, force and matter, matter and spirit, body and soul, is but one; and it thus exhibits a reconciliation, a higher unity, of materialism and idealism, of pantheism and atheism, which unity in the scientific and the practical ethic realm has no antagonist to fight more energetically, and none which it is better able to fight successfully, than dualism, which the monistic view of the world, by a queer mistake as to the theistic position of God in nature, especially considers the whole theistic view of the world.

The scientific antagonists of teleology show such a scientific intolerance against their own associates, that one of the latest exhibitors of Darwinism, Oskar Schmidt, in his "Theory of Descent and Darwinism," bluntly classes one of the greatest and most deserving investigators in the realm of comparative anatomy and palæontology, Richard Owen, of London, with the "Halves' who, fearing the conclusions, with one word come to terms with the scientific conscience." And why?—because Owen still sees ends in nature, and by his inclination to the acceptance of a descent, does not allow himself to

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